5
VERLAINE FLATTENED HERSELF AGAINST THE WALL, where she was hidden by the lockers. Then she wondered if she looked like an insane person.
Well, it wasn’t like people at this school could hate her any more even if she were crazy. Everybody knew Mateo Perez was basically a big old ticking time bomb of crazy, but nobody went out of their way to be unkind to him.
Maybe she actually was nuts—but there was only one way to find out.
Peering out from behind the lockers, Verlaine could again see Nadia Caldani, who was putting away her books. She looked like any other girl in school, getting ready to go home like everybody else, and about the only thing that stood out was her really great hair. Verlaine glanced down at her own prematurely gray locks and sighed.
Was she really going to challenge Nadia about this? Was she willing to stand up and say she believed something that bizarre?
My car flew, Verlaine thought, and decided to trust her gut.
Just as she darted forward into the crush of people in the hallway, Nadia lifted her head and saw her. As soon as she did, she turned away from Verlaine, obviously eager to escape, but Verlaine quickened her steps to catch up.
Then Jeremy Prasad appeared. Verlaine’s heart did that thing it did whenever she saw him—that stealthy thing that felt like turning over and constricting at the same time. It wasn’t that she liked the guy; Jeremy’s personality defied any reaction but total contempt. But oh, God, that face—those shoulders—
“So you’re the new girl,” he said to Nadia, who was now glancing back and forth between Verlaine and Jeremy like she was trapped. “Need someone to show you around? We ought to be friends, you know. The benefits—we can add those later.”
Sensing her opportunity, Verlaine pounced. “Sorry, Jeremy. Nadia and I are headed out.” She folded her arm possessively in Nadia’s, and Nadia was either too surprised to resist or too desperate to get away from the oily sheen of Jeremy Prasad.
“Hanging with the freaks already?” Jeremy said to Nadia. He shrugged, and damn it, the movement of his muscles showed through every inch of the tee he was wearing. “Have it your way.”
As he wandered off, Nadia muttered, “Who is that loser?”
“Jeremy Prasad? He’s pretty much the king of the hill around here, and he knows it. As rich as his family is, and with a face like that, I guess he figures he can pick up any girl he wants, no matter how disgusting he is.” Verlaine hated that she’d said anything nice about him. “It’s not like I like him or anything. I just wish—sometimes—it were possible to pour somebody else’s soul inside that body. You know?”
“It would have to be an improvement.” Then Nadia tensed, and Verlaine knew she was about to try to dodge her again. Maybe it would be good to get her off her guard.
“How do you like the Piranha?”
“The Piranha—oh, is that what people call Mrs. Purdhy? I can kind of see it. The thing with the teeth—” Nadia made a face instantly recognizable as Mrs. Purdhy’s clenched jaw. She seemed to have decided that talking about anything but what happened yesterday might be a good idea … as if Verlaine would just forget about it. “Hey, cool dress.”
“Oh … thanks. Glad you like it,” Verlaine said, genuinely surprised. Most people in Captive’s Sound didn’t understand vintage style, though of course that meant Verlaine got to comb through the local thrift stores and secondhand shops without having to compete for their treasures. Today she was wearing a mod dress from the 1960s with big black-and-white squares, exactly the kind of thing most people here made fun of. Verlaine had told herself she didn’t care about the ridicule anymore, but all the same, it was nice to have someone actually get it.
Obviously Nadia thought the danger was past, because she had begun to relax. “The shoes are kind of different, though.”
“I stick to Converse.” Today’s pair was black. “Real period shoes are expensive, and they never turn up in sizes big enough for my boat feet. Besides, if I wore heels, I would go from being the third tallest person at this school to the actual tallest, and yes, I’m including everyone on the men’s basketball team.” They were out on the quad now, away from some of the other students; Verlaine decided it was about time to make her move. “So, yesterday, what was that?”
Nadia whirled toward her, too caught off guard to hide her shock. She tried to recover, though: “What are you talking about?”
“Last night, I narrowed it down to three possibilities.” Verlaine counted them off on her fingers. “One, you have some kind of superpower, but you’re trying to hide it because you have a secret identity; maybe there’s a Justice League scenario, et cetera. Two, this is more supernatural or occult, like witchcraft, maybe. Three, you’re an alien. I know that’s a long shot, but then all of these seem like long shots even though they’re the only possible explanations. So, can’t exclude aliens. If you are from another planet, I want to say, welcome to Earth, and if you have a starship or a transporter beam or whatever, as long as I can still call my dads once in a while, I’m totally ready to ditch this planet and try it somewhere else.”
After a long moment when they stared at each other and Verlaine’s heart thumped crazily in her chest, Nadia breathed out in a sigh. “Not here, okay?”
“Okay.” Wait. Did that mean—she was right? This really was something out of the ordinary? The surreal was becoming real, at last? Yes. It was all Verlaine could do not to jump in the air and cheer.